“Neither you nor I,” I continued, “is Larsan.” “Why?” “Why?” I echoed. “Yes, why. Tell me. You must give a reason why you believe so. I acknowledge that I am not Larsan; I am sure of that, for I am Rouletabille; but, face to face with Rouletabille, tell me why you cannot be Larsan?” “Because you saw him----” “Idiot!” exclaimed Rouletabille closing his eyes in with his clasped hands more firmly than before. “I have no eyes. I can’t see anything! If Jerry, the croupier at Monte Carlo, had not seen the Comte de Maupas sit down at his table, he would have sworn that the man who picked up the cards was Ballmeyer! If Noblet at the garrison had not found himself face to face one evening at the Troyons, with a man whom he recognized as the Vicomte Drouet d’Eslon, he would have sworn that the man whom he came to arrest and whom he did not arrest because he had _seen_ him, was Ballmeyer. If Inspector Giraud, who knew the Comte de Motteville as well as you know me, had not _seen_ him one afternoon at the race course at Longchamps, chatting with two of his friends--had not _seen_, I say, the Comte de Motteville, he would have arrested Ballmeyer. Ah, you see, Sainclair!” ejaculated the lad in a voice shaken with sobs, “my father was born before I was! One will have to be very strong and very shrewd to capture my father!” The words were uttered so despairingly that the little force of reasoning I possessed vanished completely. I threw out my hands before me, a gesture which Rouletabille did not see, for he saw nothing. “No--no! It isn’t necessary to _see_ any of them!” he repeated. “Neither you, nor M. Stangerson, nor M. Darzac, nor Arthur Rance, nor Old Bob, nor Prince Galitch. But we must know some good reason why each of these cannot be Larsan. Only when that is accomplished shall I be able to breathe freely behind these stone walls!” There was no freedom in my breathing. We could hear, under the arch of the postern, the regular steps of Mattoni as he kept guard. “Well, how about the servants?” I asked, with an effort. “Mattoni and the others?” “I am absolutely certain that none of them was absent from the Fort of Hercules when Larsan appeared to Mme. Darzac and to M. Darzac at the railway station at Bourg.” “Own up, Rouletabille!” I cried. “That you don’t trouble yourself about them because none of their eyes were behind the black spectacles.” Rouletabille tapped the ground impatiently with his foot and said: “Be quiet, please, Sainclair. You make me more nervous than my mother.” This phrase, uttered in vexation, struck me strangely. I would have questioned Rouletabille in regard to the state of mind of the Lady in Black, but he resumed, meditatively: “First, Sainclair is not Larsan, because Sainclair was at Trepot with me while Larsan was at Bourg.